Search

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of and risk factors associated with mental health symptoms in psychiatric outpatients and their family members in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This cross-sectional, survey-based, region-stratified study collected demographic data and mental health measurements for depression, anxiety and acute stress from 269 psychiatric patients and 231 family members in the Second Xiangya Hospital in China from April 27, 2020 to May 8, 2020. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to identify risk factors associated with mental health outcomes. Result: The results of this survey revealed that symptoms of depression, anxiety, and acute stress were highly prevalent symptoms in the psychiatric patient group. Respondents who were female, unmarried or highly educated were significantly more likely to have the above symptoms. In the family member group, more than half of them felt that the burden of nursing had increased during the epidemic. Subjects with a high degree of burden of care were significantly more likely to exhibit the above mental health symptoms, while females were significantly more likely to have acute stress. Conclusions: The results of this survey revealed a high prevalence of mental health disorder symptoms among psychiatric patients and an increased burden of nursing among their family members after the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Understanding the risk factors in those particular groups of people help improve the public health service system for mental health problems during public health events. For further study, exploration of the needs of mental health services and dynamic change tracking will be needed., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Qiu, Huang, Sun, Zhao, Chen, Chen, Wu, Li, Teng, Tan, Wang and Wu.)

Objective: Studies on alterations in the regional neural activity in the brain of patients with bipolar disorder (BD) have provided conflicting results because of different medications used and study designs. A low bone mineral density (BMD) is also observed in patients with BD. This study aimed to further explore regional neural activities in unmedicated patients with BD and their association with BMD., Methods: In this study, 40 patients with BD and 42 healthy controls were scanned through resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Imaging data were analyzed with regional homogeneity (ReHo) and pattern classification. Pearson's correlation analyses were performed to explore the correlations between abnormal ReHo and BMD., Results: A significant increase in ReHo values in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)/temporal pole, left cerebellum vermis I/vermis II/parahippocampal gyrus/brainstem, and right superior temporal gyrus (STG) and a decrease in ReHo in the occipital gyrus (OG; left middle OG/superior OG/bilateral cuneus) were found in the patients with BD (p < 0.05) compared with those in the healthy controls. No significant correlation was observed between the abnormal ReHo values in any of the brain regions of the patients with BMD.Support vector machine (SVM) analyses revealed that the ReHo values in the right STG for distinguishing patients from healthy controls showed an accuracy of 91.89%, a sensitivity of 75.68%, and a specificity of 83.78%. The ReHo values in the left cerebellum vermis I/vermis II/parahippocampal gyrus/brainstem indicated an accuracy of 78.38%, a sensitivity of 75.68%, and a specificity of 81.08%., Conclusion: This study further confirms the abnormal brain activities in extensive regions, and these brain regions are primarily located in the fronto-temporal-occipital circuit and the cerebellum vermis of patients with BD. The regional neural activity in the right STG and the left cerebellum vermis I/vermis II/parahippocampal gyrus/brainstem may serve as potential imaging markers to distinguish patients with BD from healthy controls., (Copyright © 2020 Shan, Qiu, Pan, Teng, Li, Tang, Xiang, Wu, Tan, Chen, Guo, Wang and Wu.)

Background: Medical comorbidities in people with mental disorders have recently gained more attention. People with bipolar disorder (BD) often have comorbid low bone mass, which is associated with increased fracture risk and related severe outcomes. However, few clinical studies on bone metabolism in BD patients are available. This study was designed to assess bone mineral density (BMD) and related influencing factors in a sample of newly diagnosed, drug-naïve individuals with BD and age- and sex-matched healthy controls., Methods: Sixty-one drug-naïve individuals with BD (DSM-V) and 95 healthy volunteers had their lumbar spine (L1-L4) and left hip (Neck/Troch/Ward's) BMD determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Besides, sociodemographic and clinical assessment were collected. Between-group comparisons and within subgroup analysis were performed., Results: Drug-naïve patients with BD had significantly lower BMD in comparison to healthy controls in multiple sites (L1, L3, Neck, Troch, Ward's, and total hip). On subgroup analysis, overweight individuals with BD had higher bone mass, while females presented reduced BMD. Binary logistic regression showed that low BMD in multiple regions was associated with BD diagnosis, body mass index (BMI), gender, and age., Conclusion: Drug-naïve individuals with BD have lower BMD when compared to an age- and gender-matched healthy control sample. Low BMI and female gender are factors associated with this outcome. The underlying pathological mechanisms of BD comorbid with osteoporosis should be further explored., Clinical Trial Registration: www.chictr.org.cn, identifier ChiCTR190002137., (Copyright © 2020 Li, Qui, Teng, Chen, Kang, Tang, Xiang, Wu, Tan, Wang, Yang, Wang and Wu.)